Review: The Jewel by Amy Ewing.

Title – The Jewel
Author – Amy Ewing
Publication Date – September 4th 2014 by Walker Books Ltd.
ISBN – 9781406347494

Violet is trapped in a living nightmare, her life is no longer her own. She’s lost her name, the right to make her own choices, even her body isn’t hers anymore. Violet has been sold to the Duchess. She’s a surrogate and will be forced to carry the child of a woman she can’t stand. Violet is isolated in the Duchess’s palace, fighting to hold onto her identity and sanity while she worries over the fate of her friends.

Then she meets Ash – another captive, a handsome companion to young female royals, and they’re drawn together. Violet and Ash are puppets in a deadly game of court politics. They’re putting their lives on the line. Is what they’ve found in each other worth the risk?

I requested a copy of The Jewel and The White Rose from Walker Books Australia and New Zealand to review. I’ve wanted to read The Jewel for a while.

I said in my review of The Woman in Black and other Ghost Stories that it put me into a horrible reading slump. The Jewel bought me out of it within the first few chapters.

The story was a little confusing at the start. Not a lot is explained straight away but as you get further into the book you get more information. I’m still confused why the royals can’t have their own kids though. But then something came out toward the end of the book about the surrogates that’s confusing too. I’m hoping more will be explained in The White Rose.

I really liked the world in The Jewel. Not so much the part where the rights of the surrogates are taken away from them, the way they’re treated by the people who buy them and that they lose their names! I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book like it before.

I don’t know why these surrogates haven’t rebelled against the royals. The surrogates are the ones with the real power in the end, the royals are the ones that need them to carry on their blood lines. Considering the choice is a life, if you live long enough, with all your choices taken from you, not even allowed your own children, or death. I think I know what I’d choose because it’s not much of a life anyway really.

I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next for Violet, Raven and Ash in The White Rose. I did not see that little gem coming at the end of The Jewel.

Have you read these book? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought of them.

– Aimee.